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day. During that time, a circumstance occurred that changed our plans, and
which, alas! in its result changed the eternal course of events, turning me
from the pleasant new sprung hope I enjoyed, to an obscure and gloomy
desert. But I must give some little explanation before I proceed with the
final cause of our temporary alteration of plan, and refer again to those
times when man walked the earth fearless, before Plague had become Queen of
the World.
There resided a family in the neighbourhood of Windsor, of very humble
pretensions, but which had been an object of interest to us on account of
one of the persons of whom it was composed. The family of the Claytons had
known better days; but, after a series of reverses, the father died a
bankrupt, and the mother heartbroken, and a confirmed invalid, retired with
her five children to a little cottage between Eton and Salt Hill. The
eldest of these children, who was thirteen years old, seemed at once from
the influence of adversity, to acquire the sagacity and principle belonging
to a more mature age. Her mother grew worse and worse in health, but Lucy
attended on her, and was as a tender parent to her younger brothers and
sisters, and in the meantime shewed herself so good-humoured, social, and
benevolent, that she was beloved as well as honoured, in her little
neighbourhood.
Lucy was besides extremely pretty; so when she grew to be sixteen, it was
to be supposed, notwithstanding her poverty, that she should have admirers.
One of these was the son of a country-curate; he was a generous,
frank-hearted youth, with an ardent love of knowledge, and no mean
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